Location from A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
The largest of the Seven Kingdoms — a vast, cold, sparsely populated territory stretching from the Neck to the Wall, where ancient traditions and the Old Gods hold sway under Stark rule.
The North remembers. That phrase is not poetry but political reality — the Northerners cling to the old ways with a stubbornness that borders on religious conviction. They worship the Old Gods in weirwood groves while the rest of Westeros follows the Seven. They keep their own counsel, fight their own battles, and view southron politics with deep suspicion. The Starks have ruled here for eight thousand years, and that continuity has created a culture where honor is not an aspiration but an expectation — and where betrayal is punished with a totality that makes southern lords nervous. The sheer size of the North defines everything about it. Bannermen are separated by days of riding. Communication is slow, winters are brutal, and survival requires a hardness that the fertile south cannot comprehend. The Boltons, the Umbers, the Mormonts, the Karstarks — each house is shaped by its geography, from Bear Island's raiding defenses to the Dreadfort's grim reputation. The North is not one place but a hundred, unified only by snow, stubbornness, and the name Stark.
An immense expanse of dark pine forests, rolling moors, frozen lakes, and snow-capped mountains stretching farther than any other kingdom. The wolfswood blankets the western interior, the White Knife river carves south to White Harbor, and the Neck's boggy marshes form a natural barrier to the south. In winter, snow buries the landscape from horizon to horizon, and the nights stretch long enough to drive men mad.
Also known as: the North, the Stark lands, the Northern kingdom